This invention relates to telecommunications systems, and particularly to large bandwidth wireless telecommunications systems and services. Wireless communications services have traditionally lacked the bandwidth, speed and reliability of hard-wired systems based on electrical or optical transmission media. For this reason, the flexibility and cost advantages of wireless systems have not been fully realized in communications networks that require what are generally known as carrier grade standards.
Throughout the world, and particularly in large nations with significant populations of scattered rural or suburban communities, the high cost of implementing carrier grade standards through hard-wired networks typically creates a disparity in service commonly known as the digital divide. For example, the United States, with its large geographic areas and uneven population distribution, may be disadvantaged by this digital divide. Rural communities or small remote urban/suburban centers share the cultural, educational, and technical interests and capabilities of the major urban centers but are often too geographically dispersed to warrant (from an economic cost-benefit standpoint) the installation of communications systems (notably data communications) that meet the requirements for full participation in the digital world.
Existing hardwired telecommunications lines and switching systems often lack the capability to provide high bandwidth connectivity to scattered populations. In many areas, no major telecommunications provider is active and small local companies provide limited services. Cellular telephony lacks the consistency and reliability of a hard-wired system, and typically enables only a low bandwidth solution. At the same time, emerging wireless solutions used in data communications, including the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, are limited in range and thus form small, disconnected islands of wireless capability. Traditionally, each such island of wireless connectivity had to be connected to others via hard-wired communication links.